The Defender – terrible, but great

I fully admit that I&#8217;m the last person in the world to deliver an objective opinion of the Land Rover Defender &#8211; a car I&#8217;m on record as preferring to pretty much any other.</p> <a href="http://www.autocar.co.uk/csfiles/blogs/stillatthewheel/WindowsLiveWriter/TheDefenderterriblebutgreat_9159/dp_rgb_defender_02_hr_83c5_2.jpg"><img style="border-top-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; border-right-width: 0px" height="193" alt="dp_rgb_defender_02_hr_83c5" src="http://www.autocar.co.uk/csfiles/blogs/stillatthewheel/WindowsLiveWriter/TheDefenderterriblebutgreat_9159/dp_rgb_defender_02_hr_83c5_thumb.jpg" width="289" align="left" border="0" /></a> But while my W124 Merc has been having some of its growing crop of electrical issues ironed out (more details to follow), I&#8217;ve spent the last few days in the Defender 110 XS that&#8217;s just joined our fleet. And I&#8217;ve been won over, again.

I fully admit that I’m the last person in the world to deliver an objective opinion of the Land Rover Defender – a car I’m on record as preferring to pretty much any other.

But while my W124 Merc has been having some of its growing crop of electrical issues ironed out (more details to follow), I’ve spent the last few days in the Defender 110 XS that’s just joined our fleet. And I’ve been won over, again.

It’s not that the Defender is a particularly good at the sort of things we expect modern cars to excel at. Even the recently-installed Transit engine hasn’t done much to diminish the industrial forge noise of a motorway cruise, performance could be politely described as adequate (wrung out it just about keeps up with modern traffic), and the recent interior makeover means there are now fewer than a dozen edges in the cabin sharp enough to draw blood.

So why do I still love it? First and foremost, because it turns every journey into an adventure. No modern car delivers a better feeling of momentum than a rolling Landie, the towering seating position gives occupants a bird’s eye view over proceedings and the heavy, precise controls reward smoothness.

But the full-on 110 is also an unarguably useful thing, capable of swallowing three adults, one baby, a folded pushchair and a trip to Ikea without breaking sweat. The skyscraper dimensions make you think it’s enormous, but it’s actually impressively space-efficient by modern standards, being a whole 20cm shorter than my Mondeo.

While I adore Landies, possibly more than my wife, mother and any future children put together; the latest one has some serious flaws. The engine, gearbox and build quality all seem fragile (stories of bodies completely lopsided and new gearboxes/engines after 12k).

Now that the British army don't buy them for their 'snatch land rover' requirements how long before the civilian-dominated production is crated off to Mumbai?

And as for being the genuine and best mudplugger the original G-Wagen(G class) has just had a makeover with latest Merc diesels, electronics and so on and although admittedly about one and half times the cost of the Defender is undoubtedly more capable, smoother , powerful and no more fuel-consuming.

yes, they're expensive new - but have you seen how the things retain their value? Getting a decent mid-90s station wagon for under £10K is tricky - you can buy similar age/ mileage Range Rovers for less than half as much. I can't take most of the modern Land Rover range seriously, especially the truly horrible Range Rover sport, but the Defender is still the real deal.

Off road it still puts some much pricer equipment to shame. At the 4x4 track at Gaydon HMC I was taken round a fairly brief course by one of the resident Landie drivers and, in between bashing my head and camera against sharp bits of dashboard and door frame, it was interesting to learn of the beaching of far more exotic material around the same track - Cayennes for example, despite being fitted with off-road tyres....